Google’s AI Can Remove Watermarks, and That’s a Big Problem

Well, this is awkward. Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash AI has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons after users discovered that it can remove watermarks from images—including stock photos from major companies like Getty Images. Yep, that's right. Google just unleashed a tool that can effortlessly wipe away watermarks, and it's free to use.

AI-powered tools have been dabbling in watermark removal for a while, but Gemini 2.0 Flash takes it a step further by actually filling in the missing parts of the image after the watermark is removed. And while Google labels the feature as "experimental" and claims it's "not for production use," the fact that it exists at all is raising serious copyright concerns.

To be clear, removing a watermark without permission is illegal in most cases, and other AI models like Claude 3.7 Sonnet and GPT-4o refuse to do it outright. But Gemini? No such restrictions.

After backlash, Google responded with a vague statement saying that copyright infringement violates their terms of service, but the damage is already done. This AI loophole is out in the wild, and copyright holders will not be happy.